Auld Mortality was the first Doctor Who Unbound audio story produced by Big Finish Productions. It featured Geoffrey Bayldon playing an alternate version of the Doctor. Carole Ann Ford also performed the role of Susan, albeit an alternate version to her TV role.
Publisher's summary[]
What if...the Doctor and Susan had never left Gallifrey?
Whatever happened to the Doctor?
He could be Gallifrey's favourite author. Or a bad-tempered recluse. Or crossing the Alps with Hannibal. Or all three.
But an adventurer in Time and Space? Hardly... The family would never approve of that... they had other plans for the Doctor and the awesome power of the Time Lords.
Synopsis[]
On Gallifrey, The Doctor, a reclusive author, uses his Possibility Generator to research historical events, currently observing Hannibal crossing the Alps, attended by his robot servant Badger. His work is interrupted by a visit from Susan, now President of the High Council, bearing an invitation to a reception honouring his book, "An Adventurer in Space and Time", which he declines. Later, his great-granduncle, Ordinal-General Quences, arrives, criticising the Doctor's withdrawal from Gallifreyan life and his writing.
The Doctor demonstrates the Possibility Generator to Quences, showing him a potential future where the Doctor accepts the Presidency, only to reveal Quences manipulating events from the shadows. This sparks suspicion about Quences's true nature and influence. President Susan returns, concerned, and bypasses Badger to enter the Possibility Generator herself, finding the Doctor within his Hannibal simulation. Inside the simulation, the Doctor interacts cautiously with Hannibal and his elephant Surus, parrying questions about his knowledge of the future.
Susan confronts The Doctor within the simulation. He realises this is *his* Susan, the one he remembers, not the President. They reconnect, and he explains his use of the generator as a way to experience the universe vicariously after disowning his family and Gallifreyan politics, except for his fond memories of her. She reveals she is President-elect, due for investiture today. Meanwhile, Quences (acting through Badger) reveals he has manipulated the Doctor's isolation and research for years, having faked his own death and transferred his consciousness into Badger, planning to influence Susan's presidency.
Quences, via Badger, attempts to coerce Susan into returning for her investiture, trapping The Doctor. The Doctor overloads the Possibility Generator, causing reality distortions. Susan identifies Quences's presence in historical records and realises he is the ancient Time Lord figure known as Auld Mortality, whispering counsel to presidents throughout history. She attempts to destroy Badger/Quences. In the Hannibal simulation, the Doctor gives Hannibal crucial advice before using his TARDIS (disguised as a casket within the simulation) to escape the generator field with Susan. Back in his study, the generator deactivated, the Doctor understands he was trapped in his own virtual realities. Susan affirms her duty calls her back to Gallifrey. Despite the Doctor's plea for her to join him now he's free, she departs, leaving him to travel alone once more.
Cast[]
- The Doctor - Geoffrey Bayldon
- Susan - Carole Ann Ford
- Ordinal-General Quences - Derren Nesbitt
- Badger/Gaulish/Tribesman/Winston Churchill - Toby Longworth
- Hannibal - Matthew Brenher
- Surus - Ian Brooker
- Gold Usher/Thaleks - Nicholas Briggs
Crew[]
- Cover Art - Clayton Hickman
- Script Editor & Director - Nicholas Briggs
- Executive Producer - Jacqueline Rayner
- Music and Sound Designer - Alistair Lock
- Producers - Jason Haigh-Ellery and John Ainsworth
- Writer - Marc Platt
Worldbuilding[]
The Doctor[]
- The Doctor is renowned on Gallifrey for his fictional work, An Adventure in Space and Time.
- The Doctor has created a Possibility Generator, allowing him to explore virtual worlds and ideas.
- The Doctor's birthday is on Othermass.
- On the Doctor's travels, he meets Winston Churchill.
Gallifrey[]
- Amongst the Presidents Quences mentions is Scholem, who fell on the presidental steps on the Panopticon and cracked his head open, Roseia who was poisoned by his own food taster, and Precep II who died of a paper cut at an archivist's supper.
- A Supreme Council rules Gallifrey.
- Transmats are commonly used around Gallifrey.
- After the Doctor leaves Gallifrey, his TARDIS takes on the forms of an old tree stump, an old minaret, a wardrobe, a revolving door and a black sarcophagus using its fully operational chameleon circuit.
Species[]
- Half of Mutter's Spiral has fallen to the Thalek Empire, whose war cry is "Annihilate!"
Places[]
- When the Doctor is reading reports from the worlds outside Gallifrey, he sees that there has been a Fungal Coup on Esto, and a steep rise in the price of sols on Mephisto Regis.
- Amongst the many infinite possible realities and worlds the Doctor sees in when he climbs up the Possibility Tree were the fires of the Aurora Temporalis ("the anvils of Heaven from which all time springs"), the Frost Fairs of Ice Askar, the Winter Star, from which you "skate through the sky and carve sculptures in the clouds", and the glittering torchlight on the canals of Venice.
Notes[]
- References are made to other alternative realities, including a reference to Barnes Common from Doctor Who in an Exciting Adventure with the Daleks.
- This audio drama was recorded on 9 February 2003 at the Moat Studios.
- There are many similarities between this story and Deadline, another audio drama in the Unbound series. Both stories are about a struggling writer penning stories about travels in time and space as the Doctor, and being reunited with a family member as they begin to get fiction and reality confused. They also both feature alternate First Doctors. However, in Auld Mortality, the main character actually was the Doctor, whereas Martin Bannister just believes himself to be. In a way, that story could be seen as a dark parody of this one. That story's ending is a dark mirror of this story's, with Martin believing himself to be leaving in the TARDIS with Susan, as the Doctor did in this story, as he in reality suffocates to death in a wardrobe. The TARDIS being disguised as a wardrobe is also mentioned in Auld Mortality as a theoretical possibly.
- The story was reissued in the audio anthology Unbound: 1-8 Collected in September 2022.
Continuity[]
- In the main universe, Quences was murdered shortly before the First Doctor left Gallifrey. (PROSE: Lungbarrow)
- The Doctor saw himself "spiralling between worlds in an old TARDIS". (TV: An Unearthly Child)
External links[]
- Official Auld Mortality page at bigfinish.com
- DisContinuity for Auld Mortality at Tetrapyriarbus - The DisContinuity Guide
